Manchester United have had some legendary goalkeepers at Old Trafford, where Peter Schmeichel and Edwin van der Sar are for many the greatest. Andre Onana ends up in a completely different ranking – the United goalkeeper of all time flop. For Van der Sar, it is actually completely incomprehensible that the former Ajax goalkeeper did not succeed at Manchester United, but he has a theory.
Van der Sar was the boss at Ajax and knew Onana very well. The Dutchman knows Manchester United similarly well, and thought this must be a very good match.
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“I worked with Andre Onana for three or four years at Ajax. He came in as third choice in goal and was very eager to take the step up and become the first choice. I think, and still think, that he has tremendous qualities – his reactions and his feet – but somehow he has that weird flaw in him that makes you think ‘That’s crazy, how can he do that’,” Van der Sar begins on The Overlap.
Who believes it was the United defense that was the biggest problem.
“A team wants stability, to know what your goalkeeper is doing so that the back four can relate to that, and I think that’s what happened [the problem] with André. Manchester United haven’t had stability for the last six or seven years – the back four are being replaced, the centre-backs and midfielders are being replaced, the coaches are being replaced – so it’s difficult for new players to come into an environment where expectations are high, not only for goalkeepers, but also for a winger or midfielder. A lot of players who have come here in the last eight or nine years haven’t reached the level people expected them to reach,” the goalkeeping legend continues.
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-I definitely thought that he [André] would succeed when he first came here. As I said, I worked with him and saw him at Ajax. He did well in Italy and played in a Champions League final, so I thought it was a perfect match,” Van der Sar concludes.
When we see how Senne Lammens has dealt with “the instability in the back four”, one understands that Onana’s leap from world-class saves to U16 player blunders, did not provide the necessary security for the United players who needed a beacon of a goalkeeper, the security itself. Nothing fancy, just predictably secure.
